The National Education Policy Center posted this interview with Elizabeth Dutro, whose work centers on teaching children who have experienced traumas.
We live in traumatic times. The COVID-19 pandemic has killed over 135,000 thousand in the U.S., and has sickened many more. The economic downtown has resulted in more than 50 million unemployment claims. Police have continued to kill unarmed people of color, touching off nationwide protests that may or may not lead to widespread permanent reforms. All of this has disproportionately impacted people of color and low-income families, who have been more likely to get sick and die from the virus, lose their jobs, and face violence at the hands of law enforcement.
Throughout it all, schools, which serve not only as a place to learn but a sanctuary and source of comfort for many, have been closed since March to slow the spread of the coronavirus. With the resurgence this summer of the disease, remote instruction may continue in many places through the fall.
In the Q&A below, trauma and learning expert and National Education Policy Center Fellow Elizabeth Dutro responds to difficult questions about how teachers can effectively and respectfully address the traumas that are touching so many of their students’ lives, either in person or from afar, even as they, themselves, may be experiencing similar traumas of their own. A professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder, Dutro is the author of The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy: Centering Trauma as Powerful Pedagogy (Teachers College Press, 2019).She is currently collaborating with children and teachers to examine what trauma means and how it functions in classrooms. Her other research interests include teachers’ opportunities to learn together in the context of their daily work and relationships with children, as well as the role of teacher education in critical and affective teaching.
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I read Professor Dutro’s advice and it is especially important to remember.
She notes, “Teachers’ experiences of the crisis are a central resource for connect-
ing with students, demonstrating value of students’ lives and knowledge, and supporting them in learning in the midst of this challenging time.”
Of course, the “I’m so tough, not a snowflake” supporters of Trump are afraid to admit their vulnerability. He is their Bully-in-Chief.
Then there are those sociopaths who don’t care about other people’s pain.
Professor Dutro might as well be speaking to visitors from some other planet.
Therein lies a large part of the national crisis we are in now.
But Prof Dutro is speaking to teachers– and they are reaching out to children and parents. Some parents may be visitors from another planet/ Trumpista sociopaths– or just garden-variety ornery rurals– but hopefully a good chunk of them will be happy to be contacted.
From what I’ve read here & at comment threads to ed-articles, many teachers spent a lot of time in Spring reaching out & trying to find/ connect w/ help students when schools closed. I know my sis, a hisch asst principal in a rural area, spent most of her time doing just that– plus organizing vehicles to provide “hot-spot” wifi where needed.
I think I like Dutro’s encouraging teachers to share their experiences to help traumatized students feel more comfortable speaking about their own difficulties. But that’s a tough tightrope to walk, just as in parenting. Resisting even a hint of vulnerability will surely make students clam up & swallow their troubles. Though that’s a path many take, in an effort to provide the calming effects of routine. Too far in the other direction can burden children and disturb hard-earned equilibrium. Dutro seems to be asking for the sensitivity of a therapist, a rare quality. But I expect all teachers find their own particular path to something along these lines.